Death Of A Dimension - Part 6
[This story has been co-authored with DawnCharger. Again I would also like to Thank Myrios “Malak” LeJeans player for allowing us to use his RP hub (The Rift) as the centre of many of these stories and for his input to the roleplay.
To recap; Ceara, Faolán, Áinfean and Alpharius are at the aspect of The Rift they entered from Dublin. Áinfean had actually arrived via the aspect of The Rift found in Cork (Dublin, in her dimension having recently been destroyed by a filth bomb). They have been unexpectedly joined by the alternate dimensions Aath and Brean and while the triplets are desperately trying to diffuse the situation with their parents and Alpharius. A dangerous situation just gets worse.]
{{A story of frying pans and fire}}
He had hardly finished when Ceara took a step back, eyes bristling, “Da … NO! …“
Father and daughter stare at each other for a few moments … Aath from her position of tightly hugging her son, interjects, forcing a smile she doesn’t feel, “Daughter … Ceara … Your Da and I are one in this … You know that you, Áiny and their Astra will only be barely enough to keep him safe.”
She raises a hand to try and stall further protest, “You, Áiny and Liahund will return to their world. You will fight to stop happening there … What is happening here.”
Áinfean initially looked as if she was about to add something but is now staring out through the store front … mouth open, eyes wide in growing horror.
Ceara rushes out the door, tears streaming down her face, snatching her katana from the umbrella stand as she passes, shouting, “Fanfaidh mé!” (I will Stay!)
Brean shouts, “Óró Ceara. Nil!” (Attention/Heads-up Ceara No!) As he quickly follows the hot-headed young woman.
Aath pushes Faolán to Áinfean, and follows her husband and daughter. Calling to the other two as she leaves the shop. “Keep each other safe!” The force of the push knocks both Faolán and Áinfean over.
Faolán shouts from his position on the floor “Alpharius … help please.”
It’s curious the things that go through your mind in times of crisis. An old memory during a funeral that brings an inopportune smile, thoughts of holiday firecrackers during heavy shelling, wondering whether one left the stove on during a rollover. For Alpharius’ part, his thoughts manifest from an old, if timeless, video: “■■■■■■■■ it, Leeroy.”
Everything was fine. Perfect, even: pups reunited, Plan A achieved, Plan B proposed, door available. If Aath and Brean wanted to die in their world, fine–not his problem. Al had kept his promise to his sister (and by proxy, nephew), and brought Ceara back where she wanted to go.
Then she had to run out that fv<king door.
No, no, no. He’d more than stuck his neck out for her as it was, and she was a grown-ass woman besides. Choices have consequences, and he didn’t owe it to her to suffer them with her. Hell, she knew he had a daughter and a nephew to get back to. She … he sighs. She chose her path. He’ll miss her, but … that door was closing.
“Alpharius…”
He freezes at Faolán’s voice. No, fv<king no, don’t…
“Help.”
Alpharius bites back a growl as he turns to tell him off and stops. Faolán’s eyes look up, helpless, begging. The same plea for something, anything, to make this right that he saw in Roxana’s eyes so many years ago.
“Please.”
She’d been screaming. Hearing him beg was almost worse.
Contract’s not done yet after all. Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit, Ceara was going to owe him for this.
Swearing under his breath, Alpharius makes his way for the door, withdrawing his Ulfberht. He pauses and points to the remaining two pups. “You two–stay here, or better yet, get your ■■■■■ to the other side.” He pauses, then comes up with a better idea and turns to Myrios. “Get them to the other side, but keep this portal open.”
Myrios cautions, “You’ll need me to let you through that particular door. You can only leave through the door you entered. But I’ll hold the storefront open. Don’t worry. For as long as the environment is safe to. I’ve had to close storefronts due to Filth corruption outside.”., He says, sliding across the counter easily as if he’d done it thousands of times over the Ages. He had, in fact. He strides, as close to a jog as one can get in twenty feet of floor space and puts his hand on the door before Al can open it. “You’ll need me to let you back in … whatever the year is. Once you come back in from that door, that’s now your entry. Be careful.”, He says to Alpharius before opening the door fully into a different night than their own.
Ceara bursts through the door and after a couple of paces stops and looks at the sky. Wiping the tears from her eyes … it looks wrong … the evening is way darker, dimmer, more sinister and a fog is starting to form to the north. This small pause is all it takes for Brean to catch her.
Gently placing a non-restraining hand on her shoulder, “A iníon fan, tá an ceart agat … tá an ceart agat. Tá laochra póraithe ag do mháthair agus ag daidí. Tá an cogadh seo caillte. Tá an ceann eile sa chomhardú. Tá tú ag teastáil ann.”
((Daughter wait, you are right … you are right. Your mother and dad have bred heroes. This war is lost. The other is in the balance. You are needed there.))
Aath slides to a stop next to the pair but is looking at the buildings at the far end of the street, her eyes wide “Oh fv<k! … No! …” She grabs his forearm, “Irish look! …”
Alpharius barges headlong out of Myrios’ shop, dropping into a battle chant to centre himself. Harmony flows through him, centring his thoughts and muscles, giving him a brief moment of clarity, a tactical sight of the world around him.
“Ceara!” he bellows. “Get your ass BACK here! What in Olympus’ name are…”
He slows to a walk, coming to rest beside Ceara and her family as they get their first good look at a dying world.
Back in the store Áinfean recovers fastest, as she stands she looks resolved. Ceara she trusted and her sister’s words carried weight. Looking over to Myrios, “Mr LeJean, it is settled, we are to remain and return to this Alpharius’ world …” Her expression can’t completely hide the distaste at saying this name that had been, until now, associated with nothing but treachery, backstabbing and lies.
“Is there anything Liahund and I can do to help you keep this door open … or anchor to the world he has been living in?”
Faolán is slower to recover as he was watching, a little surprised, as Alpharius actually went after his sister. While he may not be as book smart as Áinfean, or mentally agile as Ceara, he wasn’t stupid by any means. His mind is rapidly considering the ramifications of Alpharius’ actions.
Climbing to his feet he knew that while the proverbial ‘shit has hit the fan’, there was still no telling where the resultant splatter would land. His sister’s question brought his mind to the task at hand, and he too looks to Myrios for an answer.
Fools rush where angels fear to tread.
Inky blackness divided by zero, moons untethered. Liminal houses on empty streets make up an urban funnel, claustrophobic in their array; side-by-side, so close that blank windows stare into one another, glittering eyes locked in an eternal staring contest. Fog obscures the stars with little cat feet, hiding shapes and ideas and sizes, all familiar and yet twisted, wrong … so, so wrong.
A bridge emerges from the ground, fused to the earth, naturally built, calmly spinning as it shouldn’t. A seashore is half-visible through the walls of one building, with the foot of a staircase just before the water. The stairs rise up, up, up, up into forever, though the sky of this Plutonian shore does not breach the roof outside.
A throat the size of a volcano clears itself, half the world distant. The resulting tsunami already roars inland, washing away the scent of honey. No more could any taste and see, but feast and experience. Trueness of trueness of trueness, the toybox of Gaia’s dream is finally opened for the rest to share.
Consumed husks of stars swirl around them dressed, in pace requiesat, draped in the draven light of the heat-death of all things, whispering counter clockwise to the purple of smell.
The sky above them screams.
The Bee within Alpharius is the only thing that saves his life. It strains within, rending itself against his soul as it distils the madness around him into a dull headache and a nosebleed. When he blinks to clear his vision, the world shifts around to something that seems at least familiar enough.
His mind instantly goes to Tokyo–buildings and streets overrun with Filth, their inhabitants wandering in circles, babbling to themselves. Hounds and birds wander about in the distance, either not noticing the newcomers or not caring.
He steps closer to Ceara and her family, lost for words.
Brean feels Aath’s insistent grab at his arm and turns his head to her, to see something he has only rarely seen. While only fleeting, before her mask of determination returns, there had been a look of genuine fear. He follows her gaze to discover that the fear was well warranted.
At the far end of the street, their reality reeled and bubbled on itself as an inky blackness oozed from the broken window and door apertures and flowed onto the street. The surface bubbled and burst. From the bursting bubbles could be seen disembodied, misshapen limbs, torsos, and heads. Some with, some without tentacles, claws, misplaced gapping, fang filled mouths. The hideous misshapen copies of reality, shadow hounds slowly raising themselves. Their screeches and babbling grating on sanity.
The beings falling back into the ooze only to rise again with the formation of new bubbles of unreality. Buildings twist and fold upon themselves … a living Escher lithograph.
Ceara’s mind reels as her mind struggles to comprehend what is happening. While she doesn’t have the protection of a Bee, she is at least partially of the Aesir. Still it’s obvious to her parents that her sanity is clinging to reality by the slimmest of threads.
As her lucidity wavers, the tip of her blade, the ancient Kachigaru, dips as she struggles to maintain some degree of control. Against all tradition the tip touches and gives a metallic scrape as the tip runs against the timeless cobbles of this Cork street.
This scrape of metal on stone, along with another anchor to reality that comes from an unexpected source … a voice once only associated with hate and distrust …
“Ceara! … Get your ass BACK here! What in Olympus’ name are…”
With obvious difficulty the young woman manages to drag her eyes away from the horror, drawn to the sound of Alpharius’ voice. A detail not lost on her mother, whose eyes had also turned to the man. She could see the fear they both felt mirrored in his eyes.
Ceara has to clear her throat of the fear she feels before she can speak, even then it’s little more than a squeak, “Al! … what the fv<k?”
Áinfean nods as Mr LeJean explains he can keep the storefront open until the filth looks as if it would try and gain access. She furrows her brow as the ramifications of his words dawn on her and she wonders, Who … what … was Mr LeJean?
She starts to move towards the door but stops and the colour drains from her face when she sees the speed of the horror unfolding through the store’s darkening front window.
Faolán follows Myrios’ move to the door. Without really considering the consequences, he plonks a foot between the door and the door jamb, giving Myrios an apologetic smile and a small shrug of his shoulders. He is yet to look outside.
Alpharius takes one look around, feeling his Bee screaming with the simple gesture, then speaks his judgement:
“This place is fv<ked. We gotta go.”
He turns his gaze to the few sane things left–Ceara, her parents, the murderous, confused glare ever present in Aath’s eyes. Thank the gods, a constant among these twisted variables. “Back to the shop, all of us. We can kill each other later.”
Brean had also noted the direction of both Ceara’s look and that of his wife. Aath was already holding his forearm … he raises it and kisses the back of her hand, speaking gently, “A ghrá, ag focal chuirfinn deireadh leis an bhfear. Ach ní hé seo an t-am. “ (My love, at a word I would end the man. But this is not the time.)
His kiss and tenderly spoken words, draw her eyes to his … There is a moment’s silence as the couple rapidly and silently communicate. Aath closes her eyes and her lips slit as she takes in a deep breath through her nose before she opens her eyes looking into his, she nods.
Reaching out with his free arm Brean draws Ceara into a three-way hug and buries his head into her shoulder, whispering something into her ear. Aath is applying her side of the hug fiercely and after Brean raises his head she kisses her daughter as tears stream down their faces.
Releasing herself from the hug Aath’s eyes, possibly unexpectedly moving from Ceara and Brean to Alpharius, “Maybe you can absolve yourself a little … Stand with us, help us save my babies.”
As she says this Brean suddenly and effortlessly picks up his daughter and propels her back into the store through the door being held open by Faolán’s foot. The movement is so fast that Ceara only has time to scream an incredulous “Da … !?”
The movement has also pushed Alpharius back and to the side a little, giving him an unobstructed view of the advancing ocean of filth.